


Broken Clocks

by ColdNeon



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Racism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society, F/M, Gen, Original Character(s), Other, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, You'll understand soon enough, itll make sense in the future trust me, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:27:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3749845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColdNeon/pseuds/ColdNeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave Strider has spent years trying to survive on his own, struggling with money, discrimination and the threat of unemployment. One day a chance encounter with a certain burgundy-blooded troll sets off a chain reaction which leads to him regaining control of his life, and maybe having room for someone else in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Clocks

**Author's Note:**

> Once, Stephen King said that to become a good writer, you should aim to write 2k words a day, so this is part of an ongoing effort to write as much as I can daily, in an attempt to far surpass my current writing abilities. As such, if you could leave me any sort of feedback on writings, that would be awesome!

A wisp of smoke raised steadily upwards, the small remains of a cigarette starting to crumble between your fingers. With a curl of your lip, you flicked it over into the gutter and turn to head back inside. The city street is dirty, covered with rotting garbage and one passed out troll. Grunting slightly at the sight, you opened the door to the store and walked inside, ignoring the annoying doorbell with its oh-so-happy charming ring. Your boss, a giant troll by the name of Rassak glared at you, loudly shouting profanity-laden sentences about letting his store’s quality slip. Barely (and god you’re thankful for it) you managed to keep your tongue in line, holding back on making a comment about the fact that the store is already a dump. As you grabbed a broom and started sweeping away at the ever-present layer of dust that covered the antique store, the chime of the doorbell rings loud, and you on instinct look up, hoping for some stupid human or troll who would want to buy the store’s absolute rubbish. A shortish, burgundy-blooded troll walked in, her eyes panning over the store’s wares, her hands gently brushing off the dust on some of the antiques. You shrugged, before returning to your brushing, and all was quiet for a bit. Rassak has seemingly gone back into his office and left everything up to you once again. Internally you cursed a bit, frustrated that your boss always threw the work onto your fine ass.

A small spot on your head began to itch violently and you struggled to restrain your urge to itch it. You’d once gotten an hour long lecture from your boss when he’d spotted you rubbing your nose in front of a customer, and during that hour long lecture, five people had come into the store and left without him noticing. When you’d tried to point it out to him, you’d been docked a week’s pay for “daring to sass”. So from then on, you’d kept your itches to yourselves when customers where around, and struggled virulently to keep your smart mouth shut, lest it cost you another week of shitty ramen. You were so caught up in your internal monologue, which was starting to resemble a freestyle rap, that you hardly noticed the presence of the troll behind you, until her hand clasps are your upper arm. The reaction it causes is instantaneous.

“WHAT THE FUCK, BOSS?” You jump up whirling around, expecting to see Rassak there with a smirk, instead seeing a slightly startled troll, who looked equal parts amused and unimpressed in one single expression.

“Well, the name’s Aradia, not boss,” she chuckled, her smirk spreading gently across her face and you now feel a grimace spread across your own. You shrugged, and turned back to your cleaning.

“So what’s your problem? What d’ya need?” Disinterest creeped into your tone as you adopted the semblance of interest that you always put into sales. The shop hardly got any customers and most of the time they don’t buy anything. You’d have quit a long time back if you could afford to, but living in this neighborhood has taken its toll on you, and you’re not sure you could save enough money up to get out. Mentally, you shrugged. It’s better than anything working with the gangs had ever done for you, plus you’re less likely to be hurt and stabbed here.  Once again, you’ve gotten so off-track with your own thoughts that you’re left asking her what she said again, which embarrassed you slightly. She probably thinks you’re into her or something. Lame.

Ridiculous even, Strider has way too much swag to be so mislaid by one pretty attractive troll. _Pretty attractive?_

“I said, I was just looking at some of these and I was wondering how much it would be for this music box set?” Her head cocked slightly and that smirk goes across it once again. You nodded your head and reach for the dusty piece of shit. Opening it clouded you in a dusty mess and you gritted your teeth, before reaching inside the box for the price tag. Even you with your composure of steel, you blanch at the price attached to it, it being far beyond your monthly income. It was simply something you could not even dream of affording. Or would want to afford, the things all have weird melodies that you don’t really get at all.

“It’s like 800 bucks for the whole set, I can probably cut off like 50 bucks if I try my best.” She nods, reaching into her bag and taking out a wad of cash, quickly flicking through the multi-coloured currency and selecting a few bills before passing them to you.  Your eyebrow rose up from behind your shades and you carefully counted out the cash before you tilted your head to the side. There’s 850 dollars here.

“Hey sis, I think you screwed up and gave me a little much dosh.” She started to walk off with the set of music boxes, seemingly ignoring your protests, until she was midway through the doorway. She turned around and looked back at you, that odd smile on her face again.

“Consider it a tip. For being so cute.” And with that little bombshell, she whirled on her heel, her long dress sweeping around her feet, and strolled down the garbage-filled street. You’re left staring after her, somewhat in shock at her audacity, somewhat in shock that you were called cute, but mostly somewhat in shock that you might actually make a bit of side money for once. Stuffing the fifty roughly in your pocket, you knock on the office door and are immediately greeted by Rassak’s enormous chest. You grunt, hold up the cash to him, which he snatched from you and counted quickly. His eyes look deep into yours, trying to work out if you’re swindling him out of anything but his eyes as usual are distracted by his greed. He slams the office door in your face, obviously planning to go and wank with the money. The sick thought made you smirk a little and you hoped in vain that he’d get a paper cut.

The rest of the shift passed quickly, with a grand total of one more sale actually occurring, with a timid looking male human coming in. His eyes were barely able to focus, and he’d seemed really shifty. You’d made sure that he could never be close to any of the antiques that were fragile, for the sheer fear that your boss would not blame him, but you and thus dock more money that you cannot afford to lose. As soon as the clock ticks over to 2am, you grabbed your shit and got the hell out. No way were you gonna spend any more time around that asshole, considering the last time you took slightly too long to get out, you ended up being roped into another 3 hour shift and earning way less than you should have. Since then you’d taken to running out of the building as quick as you can, as soon as shift ends.

The streets were cold, especially given that the cold months were just starting to kick into gear. It’s expected to be one of the coldest years in a while, and you can assume that those homeless, trolls and humans alike, will most likely freeze to death on the streets. It’s not a rare site to see EMT’s bundling up corpses in body bags, especially in the cold months. You often miss the days when you’d lived in Houston, before you had to move on due to the lack of work. In the months that had followed your initial shift to the city, you’d worked a variety of jobs, from fuel station attendant to nightclub DJ to street cleaner. You were still doing DJ gigs, but they were barely enough to get by, so you’d taken up a day job to try and supplement your income enough to survive.  After about three weeks on the streets, you’d managed to get a room in a rundown apartment complex where you were surrounded by members of local gangs and other less than savory types. Every night was the same, with you drinking a few cheap beers in an attempt to lull yourself into a dazed state so that the constant noise of trolls yelling at night and humans yelling in the morning was dulled a bit. The everyday source of irritation would have probably driven you insane if you didn’t keep yourself pushing forwards. In the months you’d been staying at the complex, you’d heard from Bro once, on the back of a postcard from Mexico, apparently. He was apparently involved in some music shows down there and was touring with some band of crazy Californian DJ’s. There’d been no correspondence of any sort since, which made sense given Bro’s wacked out sense of Strider honour.

As you crunched across the slippery footpath, you noticed a flash of black hair and the girl from earlier walks past you, her head down, and her legs moving quickly. For a moment, you considered reaching out and trying to get her attention but by the time you could even raise a hand, she’d turned a corner and you were left standing alone, your hand so slightly raised. Groaning slightly, you brushed your hand through your unkempt hair, before continuing your walk to your apartment.

. . .

Light filtered into your dingy apartment room, blinding you. The pain that comes with waking is one that you have always hated the most, because it gives you a headache; especially with how sensitive your eyes are. You raise a hand and tried vainly to block the sunlight that was streaming through the broken shades that covered the musty window. The brightness eventually beat your desire to nap and you rolled over, drastically misjudging the size of the single bed.  Floor meet face. For a while you just decided to enjoy mackin’ on the floor. It’s only when the sun started to warm your face that you could no longer ignore the demand of your schedule. Groaning, you lifted yourself off the floor, shifting awkwardly into a crouch and lighting a cigarette. After you finished the cheap-ass cigarette, you butted it out in the ashtray and set about cooking your breakfast.

The crackle of oil always helps in waking you up a little, as the pan spits with the heat. Flipping the cooking meat over, you flinched as a bit of fat smacks you in the face. Running a hand past it, you grimaced, hoping the burn wouldn’t leave too great a mark on your face. Cooking has never ever been your forte and you’ve been criticized by your boss for coming in with burns before, telling you to either learn to cook or “fuck off”. His threats weren’t hollow, as one of your past coworkers had been literally thrown through the glass window of the front door as you arrived to take over his shift. Troll on troll violence was quite common in the workplace, and you could almost expect a news report on troll on human abuse in the workplace daily; in which a troll would push a human too hard and maim them, or in the extreme, kill them. You yourself had had numerous close encounters, once being knocked flying by a shove by a brutish indigo-blood you’d been helping with stacking a booze shelf. He’d grunted and said something about your human filth and gone back to the job at hand. After a bitter exchange of insults, you’d lost out in the job, with your boss simply dismissing your claim. He’d insisted that you were a useless worker anyway, so what was the point in keeping you around? Another job lost due to your smart mouth getting the better of you.

That was the unfortunate downside of working in troll businesses. They were far more ruthless towards weakness than human employers, but human employers tended to discriminate more in job interviews. So, whilst you were more likely to get a job with a troll employer, you were also at a higher risk of injury than you would be if you worked under a human employer. However human employers were more often discriminatory against those in the lower classes, something that you were most certainly a part of. As soon as you’d walk into a human employer’s interview, their eyes would abrasively evaluate it, and if they didn’t approve, the job would never be yours.              So what would happen, generally, is some bullshit excuse about how “Sorry sir, you just don’t match our job requirements, we aren’t actually hiring right now.” And so on, and so on. It was an incessant wave of shit that drove you spare, but you kept focusing on the here and now in an attempt to avoid your spirits falling too far.

You chewed idly on a particularly well-cooked piece of meat, whilst you vainly attempted to not think about what the meat was, or where it came from. Knowing your luck of late, it’s probably from some weird creature that has a huge cock that’s just ripe for mystery meat. Baulking, you turn away from the food and run a hand through your hair. You’re used to styling it regularly so you grabbed a small pot of gel and dipped two of your fingers inside the small tin, running it through your hair. Once you were content with the bedhead look, you turned to face the door, just in time to see a yellow-blood’s head being rammed straight through your front door. Rubbing at your eyes, you flop down on your couch, watching as the head was retracted, before being smashed straight through the wall to the right of your door. With teeth gritted, you get up off the couch and make your way into hallway, tentatively opening the doorway.

What you found made you regret the decision of going out into the hallway. There was a bloodied yellow-blood on the floor with a wild-looking purple-blood standing over him, his eyes flushed red. From your years of experience with trolls and their culture, you quickly recognized the signs of a troll that’s on a rampage. So now, you were left with two choices. You could either step in between the highblood and his target, potentially putting yourself in the middle of a further escalating conflict. The other choice is to step back into the safety of your apartment and let this lowblood be beaten into oblivion, if not death. That’s not something you particular fancy having on your conscience, so you reach into your sylladex and yank out the sword, not bothering to unsheathe it. In an instant, you flashed across the hallway and slammed into the giant troll, knocking him backwards into a wall, leaving a large dent. You grabbed the yellow-blood off the ground and threw him backwards into your apartment. The hulking highblood looked over at you furiously, but just as he made to stand up and sweater-clad troll flew out of your peripherals and smacked into him, hand opened wide, patting the troll’s wild face. He turned to you with a wild look on his face and spat out viciously.

“I don’t know who the fuck you are, but if you don’t get back into your shithole of an apartment, I swear to the fucking gods that I will use your rectal lining and innards to paint over the damages that the ensuing fight will cause.” For a skinny dude, he’s sure got an attitude. You opened your mouth for a few seconds, before closing it. Somehow you think that your smart mouth is going to fan the flames of the situation even further, and you weren’t particularly sure that would help anything. Backing quietly into the room, you gave one last deadpan nod at the skinny dude who just shook his head in frustration. Once the door closed behind you, you turned to face the yellow-blood, who by now had propped himself up against the wall, where his leaking blood had painted it a lighter shade of yellow.  

“So asshole, what’s your name? And why are you bleeding out on my floor?”

“My name’s Sollux Captor, dickface, and at least I’m not a pretentious douchebag.”


End file.
